Mourning the departure of Arab Christians.

The Body and the Blood: the Holy Land's Christians at the Turn of a New Millennium by Charles M. Sennott. New York: Public Affairs, 2001. 459 pp.

This is a wonderful primer on a significant, but neglected subject: the diminishing presence of Christians in the Holy Land. Charles M. Sennott brings a trained reporter's eye to the Middle East, just as the second intifada broke out in October 2001. Why were Christians, who were present in this part of the world since the dawn of the church, leaving at the first opportunity and, in the process, allowing the bitter conflict to degenerate into a religious slugfest between Jews and Muslims?

Sennott does an admirable …